UPPER PENINSULA, Mich, (WZMQ) – With the weather ramping up and the snow finally falling, it looks like road commissions in the UP are finally going to have to break out the plow crews.
Even though there hasn’t been much snow this season yet, Marquette County Road Commission Director of Operations and Maintenance Ross said it is still using plenty of salt.
“We use snow to break the bond with the snow and the asphalt, so it still takes some salt to do that,” said Olsen. “There isn’t a lot of plowing because we haven’t had a lot of snow, but salting, yeah we’re still using a little bit of salt.”
Houghton County Road Commission Engineer Kevin Harju said the lack of snow so far has allowed them to save on their budget, which is much needed after the cost of repairing damages from the “Father’s Day Flood” from five years ago.
“It always seems that we spend about 2 to 2.1 million dollars a year moving snow,” said Harju. “Currently we’re about 250 thousand dollars behind last year.”
Both Commissions say the lack of snow has also let them catch up with some repairs and maintenance they didn’t have time to get to during the summer.
“We did some major bridge repair on Harlow Lake Road,” said Olsen, “we installed 6,000 feet of guard rail on the newly adopted Fly Ash Road, also known as County Rd. HX, and we’re doing some county guard rail repair, as well as state guard rail repair.”
“We’ve been doing some other activities,” said Harju, “so ditching, and brushing, and cold patching potholes, and a lot of routine maintenance on our equipment we were able to catch up on.”
No matter what the rest of the winter looks like the commissions say their crews are more than ready to keep our roads clear and safe.
They also remind everyone to drive safely as weather conditions worsen over the rest of the season.
